Plain English: March 2010 Archives

Funny that the same theatre company sometimes has a hit and a flop in the same week; but that's exactly what the Royal Shakespeare Company did recently. Denis Kelly's new play, his take on King Lear, called The Gods Weep, and starring Jeremy Irons, opened at the RSC's current London base, the Hampstead Theatre. It was so very bad (and this is, I believe, the unanimous view of all us London critics) that you have to wonder why someone didn't say, at an early stage, "Look, this is not good enough to stage. Go home and rewrite it, and we'll see if anything can be salvaged." But the next day in Stratford-u-Avon, the RSC opened Rupert Goold's superb Romeo and Juliet.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126955523847067631.html Go figure.

Among the several surprising exhibitions in London at the moment is the British Museum's Kingdom of Ife: sculptures from West Africa.Like many people, I had vaguely seen some of the sculptures - such as the "Ori Olokun" head, because it was used as the logo for an all-African sporting event in 1973, and had managed to impinge on my consciousness.But though I was aware of the Benin bronzes, "Ife" was not even a word I had come across before.

Among the several surprising exhibitions in London at the moment is the British Museum's Kingdom of Ife: sculptures from West Africa.Like many people, I had vaguely seen some of the sculptures - such as the "Ori Olokun" head, because it was used as the logo for an all-African sporting event in 1973, and had managed to impinge on my consciousness.But though I was aware of the Benin bronzes, "Ife" was not even a word I had come across before.